


Archenemies

by Magicath_420



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies-To-Friends-To-Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 11:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21076037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magicath_420/pseuds/Magicath_420
Summary: “Len-” Barry started, but cut off in another gasp of pain as Len dug the gun even deeper into his rib cage. The thief raised his eyebrows expectantly.Barry closed his eyes and dropped his head back onto the pavement. “Please, Len.” He pleaded. “Please don’t hurt me.”The kid legitimately sounded scared, Len thought. He would’ve felt a little bad if he wasn’t so distracted by the power high he was getting off of Barry laying under him, completely at his mercy.





	Archenemies

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, this is kinda horny.

“I’ve got you this time, Flash.” Len snarled from in front of the bank doors. This was his third robbery of the week, and the first one he was actually planning on to get away with: the first two had been dress rehearsals, designed to get Barry cocky about how easily he could defeat the Rogues. And the speedster was falling for it hook, line, and sinker.

Barry ran up and knocked the cold gun out of Len’s hands, pinning him to the brick wall on the other side of the ATM.

“You just can’t take a hint, can you?” Barry said. “How many times am I gonna have to kick your ass before you get the message?”

“Don’t worry.” Len drawled with a smirk. “Last time. Promise.”

And then the cold gun let off a blast of ice, hitting everything in a five foot radius. Len was shielded from the blast by the ATM (just as planned), while Barry was knocked off his feet and landed on his back in the middle of the street.

Len picked up the cold gun, spun it casually on his finger, and sauntered over to Barry, who was still gasping to get his breath back. Len knelt on one knee at his side, digging the cold gun into his ribs.

Barry gasped in pain.

“You know I’ve got a setting on this thing that’ll freeze your blood so quickly, it won’t even kill you right away.” Len pushed the gun into Barry harder as the younger man’s breathing hitched. “You’ll be able to feel your brain shut down from the oxygen deprivation. Stage. By. Stage.”

Barry squirmed, trying to get away, but Len put his other knee down on Barry’s other side, straddling him.

“Alright, alright.” Barry said, voice tight with pain.

He was trapped. Len had never fully defeated him like this before, and certainly not after...

Two months ago there had been a meta he’d needed help with. He’d found Len in Saints and Sinners, as usual, but there’d been a different kind of glint in his eye when he watched Barry walk up. Usually he looked at Barry like he was trying to see under his mask, even when he wasn’t wearing one. This time he’d looked at Barry like he was a rabid animal, and Len was trying to decide whether to fight him or appease him.

The glint in his eye didn’t change, even after two weeks in the lab together, heads bent over maps well past midnight, trying to save their city. But on the last day of the mission, when they’d finally gotten the meta locked up in Iron Heights, it shifted ever so slightly: Len had chosen to fight.

Barry put his hands up. “You win this one. Take the money, just- just go, okay?”

He’d never seen Len like this before, and quite frankly, it was terrifying.

Len hummed and tilted his head thoughtfully. “Not just yet.”

Barry looked up at him.

He leaned in close and lowered his voice. “I wanna hear you beg, Barry.”

“Len-” Barry started, but cut off in another gasp of pain as Len dug the gun even deeper into his rib cage. The thief raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Barry closed his eyes and dropped his head back onto the pavement. “Please, Len.” He pleaded. “Please don’t hurt me.”

The kid legitimately sounded scared, Len thought. He would’ve felt a little bad if he wasn’t so distracted by the power high he was getting off of Barry laying under him, completely at his mercy.

Len smirked and lifted the cold gun. “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

Barry took a deep breath, trying to regulate his breathing again.

Len stood up to walk away.

Barry managed to sit up on his elbows to glare at him. “We’re gonna get you, you know.”

“Oh, I’m looking forward to it.”

When he turned back, Barry was gone.

*********

Cisco woke up tied, to a chair, in a familiar warehouse on the outskirts of town. Snart was standing a few feet away with his back turned, tinkering with something on the table.

Cisco sighed.

Snart turned dramatically on his heel to face him. “Ah, the boy genius awakes.” He teased.

“First of all, don’t call me that. I’m 27 and I have 3 PhDs. Second of all, you don’t have to do the whole _ah__, Perry the Platypus _thing. Just tell me what you need me to fix.”

Snart stared at him for a second, taken aback. “You’re- you’re going to help me?”

Cisco shrugged.

“You’re not going to make me threaten to maim or kill someone you love first?”

“Would you like to threaten to maim or kill someone I love first?”

“Um. No. Honestly, I was running out of side characters to kidnap anyway.”

“Great. So what’s wrong with the gun?”

Snart began to answer but was cut off by a flash of red lightening, which tore through the warehouse and pushed him up against a wall.

“Let Cisco go.” Barry growled.

“Where are those manners you had last time, Flash?” Snart answered, drawl slower and deeper than it had been a second ago.

Cisco rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe this was what his life had come to.

“Not even gonna say please?”

Barry glared at the thief. “I’m not going to ask again.”

“That chair is on the pressure plate of a land mine. If he gets up, all three of us die.”

Barry’s eyes widened, and he glanced over at Cisco (for the first time, Cisco might add).

He waved a little, which was difficult because his hands were still tied down to the chair’s arms. “Hey, Barr.”

Barry looked back at Snart. “What do you want?”

Snart smirked. “Tech support.”

“You can’t keep kidnapping my friends. We had a deal.”

“Yes, the _deal_. Hi Barry, I’m Leonard. Criminal, liar, thief. I steal things, I hurt people. Remember?”

“Bullshit.” Barry spat. “You and I both know that you’re a good man. Better than this, at least.”

He crowded even closer to Snart, whose back was already against the wall. Snart had to tilt his chin up to maintain eye contact.

“What is this really about, Len?”

Snart’s eyes flickered down to Barry’s lips, then back to his eyes in the same half second. Barry tracked their movement with the precision of a speedster.

He smiled.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Then there was a flash, and Cisco was free, and Len was tied to the chair in his place, with a (clean) rag from the work table stuffed in his mouth as a gag.

Snart jolted against the restraints and glared up at Barry. The speedster leaned down until their faces were level, bracing his weight on Snart’s arms, fully aware that it was probably a little painful for the other man.

“Stay. Away. From. My. Family.” He said slowly. “Next time, I break your nose.”

Then he grabbed Cisco, and was gone.

****

Len walked into the cortex, intruder alarms blaring. Cisco stood up from his chair and moved in front of him quickly, blocking his path. Len picked him up by the collar and threw him aside bodily. He approached Barry unsmiling.

“Where is she?” he growled, low and dangerous.

“I told you to leave my family alone.” Barry answered calmly.

Len reached into his parka and pulled out a regular handgun. Barry laughed.

“You know those don’t work on me, right?”

“It’s not for you.” Len replied. Without taking his eyes off Barry, he leveled the gun right over the speedster’s shoulder- right at Iris’s head.

Barry’s eyebrows lowered.

“It’s my sister or yours, Flash.”

Barry hesitated for a second, unwilling to give in to the threat and forfeit his advantage. At this point, the idea of Len killing someone close to Barry was laughable. They’d probably fought together more times than they’d fought against each other by now. Add in the occasional midnight first aid (neither being a superhero nor being a super villain came with health insurance), the drinks they had together after, and the heated debates about the morality of stealing from the rich that usually ended up with one of them pinned to a wall... Len was practically his _friend_. Friends feel their hearts beat faster the closer they get to one another, right?

He would have bet his life- or, more tellingly, Iris’s life- that Len wasn’t going to pull the trigger. But, on the other hand, he _really_ didn’t want to hear the lecture Iris would give him if he openly dared Len to shoot her.

“You have three seconds.” Len said.

“_Barry_.” Iris warned from behind him.

“Fine.” Barry said. “Lisa’s down in the lab with Caitlin.”

“If you so much as-”

“We didn’t.” He said firmly. “We barely even touched her. She practically volunteered to her own kidnapping when she saw it was us.”

Len went to stalk past Barry, but Barry caught him by the arm.

“That stunt at the bank last week-”

“I didn’t know.” Len said quietly, not quite meeting Barry’s eyes. “I didn’t know West would be there. It was a coincidence.”

“Look at me.” Barry said. Len lifted his eyes; their faces were inches apart.

“You didn’t let the rogues hurt him.” Barry said. It wasn’t a question, but Len shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Barry held his gaze, calculating.

Joe had walked out of a four-hour long hostage situation that ended in two civilian deaths (from police error) without a scratch on him. He told Barry later that Len had physically stood between him and the rest of the Rogues the whole time they were inside the bank.

Cisco cleared his throat. “Hey, Dean.” He said, addressing Len. “You wanna go see Sam or not?”

Barry smirked and let go of Len’s arm. Len walked away, tripping Cisco as he passed him on the way to the lab.

****  
“I can’t believe this.”

“The gun jammed.”

“I can’t _believe_ this.”

“Everyone has off days, Barry.”

Barry laughed gleefully. He looked like a kid on Christmas, and it made Len want to smack him.

But he couldn’t. Because his arms were cuffed behind his back. Because, technically, through no fault of his own, he may or may not have actually lost a fight to Barry.

Len was sitting up against a wall, hands cuffed behind him around an exposed pipe, on the second floor of his (now former) safe house. Barry was standing in front of him, equally surprised by the outcome of the fight, and absolutely ecstatic. He sat down next to Len, pulling off his mask and dragging a hand through his hair. His cheeks were flushed from the fight, and his eyes were fucking _sparkling_. It was obnoxious.

“After all these years, man. You’re actually going to prison. I don’t even know what I’m going to _do_ with myself now.”

Len rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t be so sure. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

Barry smirked. “Yeah, that reminds me...”

He pushed off from the wall and knelt over Len on one knee, leaning in until their noses were almost touching. He slowly ran his hand from Len’s shoulder down to his hands behind his back.

A shiver ran down Len’s spine. They both felt it.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Len asked, voice low.

“Checking for... this.” Barry said, pulling a lock pick out of Len’s shirt cuff, fingers gently brushing the pulse point on his wrist. Barry held it up triumphantly.

“It’s cute that you think I need that to break out of prison.”

“I don’t. I think you need it to break out of those cuffs.”

Len kicked himself inwardly for the careless pun. He actually did need that pick to get out of the cuffs.

“And I think there are other tools on you that you’re going to use to break out of prison.”

Barry watched Len’s face for a second.

“Are you going to tell me where, or am I going to have to search you?”

Len held his eyes and said nothing.

Barry lowered his eyebrows. “Len. I’m going to pat you down. Yes or no.”

Len hesitated for a second. If he said no right now, Barry would back off; he’d never been more sure of anything in his life. He was in handcuffs, completely at the other man’s mercy, and if he so much as frowned, Barry wouldn’t lay a hand on him. On the other hand, if he said yes...

“I’m offended.” Len drawled. “That you think I have such little respect for authority.”

Barry raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“Do your worst, Flash.”

“Fine.” Barry said. “Don’t move.”

Barry’s hands started on Len’s chest and slowly moved down, over his ribs and abdomen. When he got to his hips, Len rolled them towards him.

Barry fisted one hand in Len’s hair and pushed his head back against the wall, hard. Len let out a small gasp of pain.

“I. Said. Don’t. Move.”

Len laughed, head still forced up so he was looking at the ceiling. “C’mon, Scarlet. We both know you could’ve done this in half a second with super speed. And that you don’t need consent to pat down a criminal for weapons.”

He pulled against Barry’s grip until he could lock eyes with him again.

“What do you really want to do to me?”

Barry was still for a moment, expression unreadable. He thought about the past couple of months, how they’d grown closer in the little quiet moments in between fights and missions. He thought of the long conversations they’d had, more than a little drunk at 3am, about morality, and about politics, and about crime, and about the opportunities some people were born with and some weren’t. He thought of Len’s strict code, of never stealing from anybody who had less than him, and never hurting anyone who didn’t deserve it. He thought of the feeling of losing to him in battle, and of winning against him in a debate. He thought of how his heart jumped at the STAR Labs intruder alarms, a Pavlovian response to Len’s presence.

Then he leaned in to Len until his nose touched the other man’s face and their lips were a breath apart. Len closed his eyes. Barry stopped right before they kissed.

“I want to make you _beg_.” Barry said. 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments make my day!


End file.
